


Spaceships & Laserswords

by MoreThanSlightly (cadignan)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Characters play D&D, Families of Choice, M/M, Queer Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 09:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13315704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadignan/pseuds/MoreThanSlightly
Summary: The first time Poe sees Leia Organa, she’s standing in the middle of the chaos of his dorm room with a pair of dirty briefs dangling from the end of a pen, her face frozen in disgust. Where did she get those from? Were they on the floor? Surely he didn’t leave them on the folding chair he’d set out for her, or the card table table he and Finn had arranged in between their two twin extra-longs. And besides, what business did this stranger have, coming into his dorm room and judging it? Yeah, it’s messy, but Poe has more important things to do than make his bed or fold his laundry—or do his laundry in the first place, for that matter. They’re supposed to be playing D&D.An AU based onthis tumblr post about a group of young men and their female DM.





	Spaceships & Laserswords

The first time Poe sees Leia Organa, she’s standing in the middle of the chaos of his dorm room with a pair of dirty briefs dangling from the end of a pen, her face frozen in disgust. Where did she get those from? Were they on the floor? Surely he didn’t leave them on the folding chair he’d set out for her, or the card table table he and Finn had arranged in between their two twin extra-longs. And besides, what business did this stranger have, coming into his dorm room and judging it? Yeah, it’s messy, but Poe has more important things to do than make his bed or fold his laundry—or do his laundry in the first place, for that matter. They’re supposed to be playing D&D.

The group had almost fallen apart last time. It was their first session since their last DM graduated, and Poe had tried to fill her role. _Disaster_ was putting it nicely. He’d even had a fight with Finn. Finn! The most non-confrontational person alive. Poe would know, since he’s confrontational as hell—except with Finn. He just wants Finn to be happy. They shared a room last year and one of them accidentally left the window open a crack in October, and it stayed that way until December, both of them shivering under their comforters, too afraid to close it in case the other one had left it open on purpose and really wanted it that way. That’s how much they don’t fight. When Poe finally closed the window, there was profuse, sheepish apologizing on both sides for about ten minutes, and then they never spoke of it again.

Anyway, last session devolved into fighting on all sides. Apparently their last DM had known what she was doing, even if she was mean as shit. She’d been organized. They clearly needed someone else like her. Poe had finally sighed and said, “I’ll put out another ad, I guess,” and then Luke—who never said anything except about the game—spoke up from behind his beard and his clear plastic thermos of kombucha.

“My sister can do it.”

Luke had a sister? He hadn’t just emerged fully formed, a mysterious grey-haired white guy who showed up to their dorm room after Poe posted about looking for D&D players, wearing a tattered bathrobe and reeking of weed? It was news to Poe.

Rey and Rose and Finn hadn’t even wanted to keep Luke in the group when they’d first seen him, but it turned out he was really fun to play with, so they all got used to him, four college students and their weird old uncle figure who was possibly less functional and responsible than they were.

Luke’s sister obviously isn’t anything like him. For one, she not only brushed her silvering hair, she put it in some kind of complicated updo. And she was wearing… well, Poe, being twenty years old and uninterested in laundry _or_ fashion, didn’t know exactly what she was wearing. Something halfway between a shirt and a dress, but also there were pants involved, and all of it was immaculately white.

“I can’t work in this shithole,” she says. “We’ll do this at my place.”

Poe expects Rey or Rose or Finn, all of them standing around watching her, to protest. They gave him shit for every little thing he said last time. Rey’s pushy as fuck and Rose can dig her heels in when she wants to. Hell, he expects himself to protest. But somehow she’s so mesmerizing, Luke’s mysterious sister in white, that they all nod. Standing in the chaos of Finn and Poe’s dorm room, dropping a pair of briefs off the end of her pen, she’s got so much authority that they just do what she says. Rose and Finn and Poe pile in her car, which is as spotless as the rest of her, and Rey, fearless freak that she is, gets into whatever sputtering, juddering pile of metal that Luke drives. Fuck knows what they talk about on the way to Leia’s house. Probably Luke’s weird religion that he made up as an excuse to never DM a game.

When they get to her neat, unassuming little bungalow off campus, Poe finds out he’s not invited to call her Leia. She slices him open with a look and says, “That’s Ms. Organa to you.”

“I—what—who _are_ you?” he says.

“Your new DM,” she answers, and they sit down around her dining room table and start to play. Leia—Ms. Organa—is bossy as fuck, and Poe might have come to her house without asking any questions, but when she passes out character sheets, he has to say something.

“Usually we do this part ourselves,” he says. He’s not actually mad about the character Leia’s given him. She describes the character as _an ace pilot_ , which is kind of awesome.

“Yeah,” Rey says, and if she’s on his side they can mount a real challenge, “and it’s Dungeons and Dragons, not Spaceships and Laserswords.”

“My house, my rules,” Leia says.

“Did you make us come here just so you could say that?” Rose asks, and is immediately silenced by a look.

“I think it looks cool,” Finn says, reading over his character sheet. “Who doesn’t want a sword made from a laser?”

“Yeah, alright,” Rey says, and then they play. Poe wants to be mad for a little while longer, but actually it’s really fun, and Leia’s a great DM, and after they’ve played for a while, they take a break and she cooks them spaghetti. They play through dinner and then clean up.

There’s a photo of her on the fridge with some guy. It’s old, maybe from the early 80s, and she and the guy must be at a costume party or something. She’s in a billowing white dress with her hair in two buns on the side of her head, and he’s in a white shirt and a black vest, holding a black plastic gun. Poe has a vague sense of women’s attractiveness, deduced from TV and magazine covers, and Leia’s pretty good-looking at whatever age she is now, but back then she was stunning. And the guy she’s with is maybe the most handsome man Poe’s ever seen.

“Who’s this?”

She’s at the sink washing a pot and she doesn’t turn around. “He’s dead.”

Okay. Maybe Poe can ask Luke when he comes back in from his weed break or whatever. He vapes, but he went outside even though it’s not smoke. Probably he was just trying to get out of doing the dishes. It occurs to Poe that he just lingered in the kitchen the whole time and didn’t help, but then again, neither did anyone else.

They play a little more once the kitchen is clean, and then—out of all the weird shit that’s happened, this the weirdest—Leia pulls out a sheet of colorful stickers that say “great work!” and “well done!” and awards them to characters she thinks deserved them. Poe doesn’t get one, even though he’s an ace pilot. He doesn’t care about that, though.

They’re invited back for the next session one week later on Sunday afternoon. Before they leave, Leia says, “You’d better shower before you come over next time, and that includes you, Luke” and Poe’s already kind of steamed—maybe he did care about the sticker—but that’s too much. Who the hell does she think she is?

When he tells Finn, expecting solidarity, Finn just shrugs. “What are you gonna do, not play? It’s just a shower, dude. And she has a point. We probably did smell gross.”

So next time, all of them show up showered and in clean clothes, and Poe gets a “great work!” sticker that he doesn’t care about, and after that, it’s just a habit that they have to have their laundry done by Sunday so Leia will let them play. Leia keeps cooking for them, too, and after a while, she offers them stickers if they do the dishes or chop vegetables or whatever, and somehow they all find themselves in the kitchen. It becomes Poe’s favorite day of the week. He doesn’t find out anything more about Luke or Leia or the handsome man on the fridge, but it’s okay. The game is good. Having clean laundry is pretty good, too, it turns out.

Life goes on around the game, and things stay the same. Finn and Rey are still weirdly close, and Poe tries not to let it bother him that the most perfect and beautiful man in his life is so tragically heterosexual, because there’s nothing he can do about it. Except one week he’s clearing plates from Leia’s dining room table and Finn and Rey are loading the dishwasher, and he overhears Rey say, “Finn… listen.”

It’s obviously the beginning of an important conversation, and Poe freezes, not wanting to enter the kitchen but unwilling to back away. Finn hesitates before saying, “Yeah?”

“I’m not good at this, so I guess I’ll just say it. I’m an ace lesbian.”

“Is that like being an ace pilot?”

They both giggle. “Yes,” Rey says, very seriously, and then they’re murmuring something too soft to hear and hugging, so Poe figures it’s safe to go in. She tells him, too, and all the others, and they hug, and that’s that.

Except it means Finn and Rey aren’t ever going to date, and Poe can’t stop thinking about it. Not that it affects him, since Finn has never shown any interest in guys. But he’d thought Finn and Rey were some kind of couple, and it turns out they’re just very affectionate best friends. Poe doesn’t know how to deal with that, so he shoves it aside with the rest of his unexamined feelings about Finn.

Next week, he catches Rey and Rose kissing in Leia’s kitchen and thinks, well, alright then.

In the game, his character and Finn’s character finally meet up, and Poe rescues Finn from the clutches of evil. They have a series of very lucky rolls and a couple of smart decisions, and Leia gives them both stickers at the end, and they high-five.

It’s October now, the last of the nice fall weather, and the four students decide to walk back to campus that evening. Poe’s on Leia’s porch zipping up his jacket when he overhears Luke and Leia talking.

“You know how to collect a crew of misfit kids,” Leia says, sounding amused. “They’re good for you.”

That’s true, actually. Luke is still a weird old hermit but he stopped wearing a bathrobe out in public a few weeks back, when Leia imposed the rule about showers and clean clothes. He combs his hair now, too, and he actually seems kind of interested in fashion, in a blazers-and-trendy-sneakers kind of a way. Poe’s gotten used to it, but he was unrecognizable the first time.

“You’re good for them,” Luke says. “And me.”

Leia makes a dismissive noise.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Luke says.

“If I tell you it wasn’t your fault either, what will you say?” Leia asks, and then they get quiet, and Poe shifts uncomfortably as he realizes how long he’s been eavesdropping. On the walk back to campus, he doesn’t say much. He’s wondering what happened to Luke and Leia.

He gets an inkling next week, when he spills a cup of coffee all over his jeans at their session and Leia has a pair of men’s jeans on hand to offer him. They’re too long for him. Did they belong to the man in the photo on the fridge? They’re not old. And they’re more like something a young person would own. Poe doesn’t ask.

Back on campus, Rose and Rey come hang out in their room. It’s less of a catastrophe now. Finn has really taken to the whole responsible adult thing and even started vacuuming and washing his sheets regularly. Poe wonders if he always wanted to do those things—like he always wanted to close the window last winter—but was too non-confrontational to ask. He’s pretty organized, it turns out, always doing his homework and even going to the gym sometimes. Once he came back to their room with his white t-shirt plastered to his chest and he peeled it off right in front of Poe, not that Poe remembers that sight every moment of both his waking and his dreaming life or anything.

They’re roommates, they change in front of each other sometimes, it’s normal, Poe’s not a creep, he doesn’t watch—these are the things he recites to himself. But that time Finn knew he was looking and didn’t make any attempt to turn away. It was almost like he wanted Poe to see.

Rose and Rey curl up together on Finn’s bed, looking at Rose’s phone together. Finn, with nowhere to go, is forced to sit on Poe’s bed, which Poe tries very hard not to think about.

“What do you think Leia does when she’s not being our DM?” he asks.

Finn shrugs.

“Preschool teacher?” Rose suggests. “It goes with the stickers.”

“You should ask her next time,” Finn says. “She likes you.”

“She does?” Poe says, and if there’s a note of wonder in his voice, he can’t help it.

Later, after Rose and Rey leave, Finn teases him about his crush on Leia. Poe says, “I’m gay,” irritated that Finn has failed to grasp this basic fact about him after more than a year of rooming together. It’s not a secret. And maybe Poe wishes his sexuality was on Finn’s mind even a fraction as much as Finn’s sexuality is on his. “Remember?”

“I know, but still,” Finn says, and damn him, somehow he’s right.

Poe resolves to find out more about Luke and Leia, but he has to be subtle about it. Leia doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, and just like with Finn, what Poe wants most is to make her happy. It’s not quite the same, since Poe fantasizes about making Finn happy in a variety of specific physical ways, whereas his fantasies about Leia involve her patting him on the shoulder and saying something like “I’m proud of you.”

Poe didn’t really have much of a family. He tries not to think about it, since Finn and Rey are actual orphans, and Rose’s sister died a couple years ago, so they have it way worse. But his mom died when he was little, and his dad never really got over it. Even years later, he was too numb and sad to accomplish anything other than keeping himself and Poe alive. His dad never said anything like “I’m proud of you.”

Poe’s never thought about it before, but maybe that’s what explains their “crew of misfits.” Their dead, absent, messed-up families. It makes him sad to think about it, and sadder to wonder if that’s why they fit so well with Luke and Leia—because they know about loss, too.

The game continues to provide an escape, but Poe finds he likes the other bits—cooking and cleaning in Leia’s kitchen, talking before and after their session—just as much. The next Sunday, he ventures outside with Luke. It’s November now, but clear and sunny, and Luke is obviously happy to vape in silent companionship.

Poe tries to start with easy questions. “Do you, um, work?”

“I don’t ask you if you study,” Luke says.

“I do,” Poe says, even though Luke doesn’t seem interested at all. “I want to be a mechanical engineer.”

“I used to be a philosophy professor,” Luke says.

“Oh,” Poe says. “So you’re… retired?”

“Something like that,” Luke says.

“Will you tell me something?” Poe asks, trying to change the subject.

“I already am.”

Poe ignores that. “Who’s that guy in the photo on the fridge?”

“Han,” Luke says, and Poe is surprised how easily he says it. “He was Leia’s husband. Probably my best friend, too, although I think he’d be embarrassed to hear it. He died about ten years ago. A car accident.”

“Was that… when you retired?”

“No,” Luke says, and they go back inside to play.

Later that week, Finn sighs and shoves his textbook across his desk, leaning back in his chair. “I hate all this stuff,” he says. “Why do we even need to take philosophy?”

“Ask Luke,” Poe says. “He used to teach it.”

“He what? Oh my god, you’re trying to solve the mystery,” Finn says. “It’s hard to imagine him with a real job. Although not as hard as it used to be.”

“Yeah,” Poe says. He looks around their clean dorm room and experiences a wave of shame at the memory of Leia seeing it in all its former nastiness. “I guess a lot of things have changed.”

“Yeah, who knew Rey and Rose were going to get together?”

“Not me,” Poe says, although he’s never that surprised when anyone turns out not to be straight. “They’re cute, though. I’m happy for them.”

“Yeah.” Finn sighs. “I think I liked the idea of me and her more than anything, you know. It would’ve been so… easy. Comfortable. The person you already hang out with all the time, who likes all the stuff you like, who’s seen all the worst parts of you and doesn’t mind. I don’t want to have to impress somebody by taking them on fancy dates. I don’t want to go to bars or clubs or other places I hate and try to pretend to be someone other than who I am so I can meet someone. I just want the perfect relationship to fall into my lap, you know, one where we make dumb D&D jokes and have lazy morning sex.”

“You don’t have any worst parts,” Poe says, or thinks he says, because his brain has liquified and he can’t think of anything except how brilliant Finn’s smile is and how he said _them_. Not _her_.

 _I don’t want to impress somebody by taking_ them _on fancy dates_.

Poe wants to shout “You don’t have to impress me, I’m already in love with you! I love dumb D&D jokes and lazy morning sex! We’re perfect together!” but instead, because he still has the overwhelming urge to make Finn happy, even if it means leaving the window open in December, he says, “We could invite some more girls to the D&D group, I guess.”

Jesus, Poe Dameron, stab yourself in the face why don’t you.

Finn makes a noncommittal noise. “The time we put out an ad for new members, we got Luke. And I love him now, but I’m just not ready for any more of that.”

And then, thank fuck, they stop talking about it and Poe can obsess over the moment in silence.

Next Sunday, Poe catches Leia in the kitchen by herself. A few weeks ago, he might have taken the opportunity to investigate further, but that was before The _Them_ Incident. “Ms. Organa,” he says.

She laughs. “You can say ‘Leia’ now, Poe, it’s okay.”

“Um,” he says, thrown off by how good that makes him feel. Is he blushing? Fuck. “I don’t mean to pry, but I’ve been wondering about something, and you seem really smart.”

“I am really smart,” she says, but she’s smiling.

“You were in love, right? So you know about—I mean, how did you—” Poe has never fucked up a question this bad in his life. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say.

“Just tell him, Poe,” she says, and Poe can’t remember ever coming out to her, but of course she knows. “You’re a handsome young man. Since you’ve taken up showering, you’re quite a catch.”

Now Poe is definitely blushing. Is this what it’s like to have a mom? Shit. “Um. Thank you, Ms—Leia, I mean. I will.”

“Sure, kid,” she says. And then, “Do it on one of the days you don’t shave. The scruffy thing, it works for you.”

Poe is either about to melt into the floor or ascend to a higher plane, and at that very moment Luke walks into the kitchen and says, “Ooh, she called you scruffy. She used to call him that.” He nods at the photo of Han on the fridge.

“I, um—wow.”

“It was meant as an insult at the time,” she says.

Luke scoffs.

“I don’t mean it as an insult to you, Poe,” Leia clarifies. “I meant what I said about how well you clean up. You’ve grown up a lot since we met. I’m proud of you.” She dries her hands on a dishtowel and wraps him in a hug.

Poe stumbles back to the dining room in a haze, beaming.

The semester picks up and consumes all his time. He doesn’t have time to solve the puzzle of Luke and Leia or to confess his feelings to Finn. Then suddenly it’s Thanksgiving, and they’re all invited to Leia’s, and there’s a whirlwind of cooking and eating and laying contentedly on the couch.

Then the phone rings. The _landline_. Poe nearly jumps out of his skin at the unfamiliar sound. Leia disappears into the kitchen and Luke grumbles under his breath and goes outside to vape even though it’s cold and dark and he could really just stay inside, it’s not like he’s smoking. They’re both gone for a long time, and after a few minutes, Poe ventures outside.

“Luke?”

“Look,” Luke says. “Han and Leia had a kid, and he made some shitty choices, and he’s in prison for them. She blames herself. I blame myself. That’s it, okay?”

“Shit,” Poe says, and now he feels terrible for wanting to know. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Luke says.

“Can I… hug you?”

Luke accepts grudgingly, then hangs on for an unexpectedly long time. “You’re good for her, you know,” he says. “All of you. Good for me, too, I guess. It’s nice to feel like you’re part of somebody’s life and not actively fucking it up.”

“You’ve both been good to us,” Poe says, and can’t begin to convey how much he means it. He goes inside and finds Leia crying silently in the kitchen, and he hugs her too.

After that, he stops asking them questions and just appreciates the game, the food, and the company. He doesn’t tell the others anything, not even Finn. A few weeks later, after she gets a sticker, Rose gets bold and says, “Ms. Organa”—Poe has first-name privileges, but nobody else has dared—“are you a preschool teacher or something?”

Leia laughs. “Or something,” she says, and that’s the end of it.

“It’s quite the romance you two have had,” Leia says while they’re playing next Sunday.

Poe freezes, but it’s Finn who says, “What?”

“You two do rescue each other a lot,” Rose says.

Oh. Their _characters_. Not Finn and Poe themselves, in real life.

Then again, everybody else—Rose and Rey and Luke and Leia, all of them, they’re all kind of sharing a smile and not looking at Finn and Poe. Is his crush that obvious? Damn. He shifts in his chair and tries not to look at Finn too much, which is hard, because that’s basically his hobby. The D&D is a bonus.

One Sunday, they go over to Leia’s house and there’s an unfamiliar car in the driveway. Poe’s heart thuds in his chest. What if it’s something to do with all the family issues? He’s on edge when he goes inside. The others all just sit down at the dining room table, noisy and cheerful as always, but Poe waits until he hears Leia’s voice.

She’s laughing. That’s good. He moves closer to the kitchen, and finds her in there making tea with a thin blond woman in a lavender turtleneck sweater.

As he walks back to the dining room table, trying not to pry, he hears a sound that might be kissing. His heart leaps again, in a different way this time. Is Leia kissing a woman in there?

Luke comes in the back door a minute later. “Hi, Amilyn,” he says. “Nice to see you.”

Leia doesn’t introduce the woman, and she stays upstairs for the duration of the game, and Poe doesn’t ask even though he’s dying to. None of his friends heard any of that, so they don’t carry around the same curiosity that he does.

He does tell Finn later that week. He feels a little bad about it, since it’s not his news to tell, but there’s something exciting about it that he can’t begin to explain. He’s lying on his bed with his knees up, scrolling through his phone but not reading anything, when he says, “I think Leia might be dating someone.”

“Yeah?” Finn says. He’s a mirror image of Poe, except it’s a philosophy textbook he’s pretending to read. “Good for her. It’s been a long time since she lost her husband.”

“I think it might be a woman.”

“Oh,” Finn says. “So she’s… bisexual.”

He places a lot of weight on the word, and Poe tries not to read into it. He fails. “Yeah. I guess. People prefer different words, sometimes, and some people don’t like any labels at all. You’d have to ask her.”

Finn bursts out laughing. “You couldn’t _pay_ me to ask Ms. Organa how she defines her sexuality. She won’t even tell us her job!”

“Oh, good point,” Poe says, but he nurtures a secret belief in his heart that she might tell him, if he asked right.

“I guess our D&D group is pretty queer,” Finn says.

“Y—what?” This isn’t an ideal response. Poe forces himself to take a breath and then says, “What about, um, Luke?”

Poe doesn’t care about Luke’s sexuality, but he can’t bring himself to ask about Finn’s.

“It’s just a feeling I get,” Finn says. He and Rey have spent a little more time with Luke since they’re both taking philosophy as a general education requirement and sometimes Luke helps them understand their readings. Poe’s impression is that he leaves them with more questions than they started with, but it seems good for Luke to spend time with human beings instead of just spacing out in the milk aisle or buying weed on that one wooded stretch of the bike path or whatever he does when he’s not playing D&D. And Finn and Rey seem to like him a lot, which they didn’t when he first showed up, so it’s progress all around. “He’d probably tell us if we asked, but even though he’s not as fearsome as his sister, I don’t want to.”

Poe’s reasons for not asking Finn have nothing to do with invading his privacy. They live together and are in each other’s business constantly. But what if the answer doesn’t include him?

He tortures himself about it for a few days.

In better moments, he thinks maybe _this_ is what brought them together--their little found family--beyond a shared love for the game. Not the suffering they’ve endured, but something else about themselves, something they can take joy in.

And then it’s Sunday, and he can’t stop thinking about the time Finn said _them_ and the time he said _our D &D group is pretty queer_ and most of all, the time Leia said _just tell him, Poe_. When she said it, he’d marveled at how she’d guessed his sexuality, but in retrospect, she was probably talking about Finn specifically. She’d seen them together—and that meant that her guess wasn’t just about Poe. It was also about Finn.

Leia’s been right about everything else so far. Poe trusts her.

Usually it’s easy to take a break from the game and invent some reason that Finn should come help him in the kitchen, but for some reason, everybody else keeps wandering into the kitchen and interrupting any chance they might have had at privacy. It takes hours to find a moment alone, and by then, Poe feels exactly like the tea kettle as it heats up to a boil. He’s so ready to finally say something that it shocks him when Finn says, “Hey, I have to tell you something.”

“Me too,” Poe says. His heart is hammering.

Finn raises his eyebrows and waits, inviting Poe to go first.

In the game, he always gets accused of being reckless and hotheaded, courting danger, taking risks. Maybe it’s time for a little more of that in real life. He leans in and kisses Finn. Finn kisses him back with surprising force, and his mouth is the sweetest thing Poe’s ever tasted, and he backs Finn against the sink and presses their bodies together. Behind them, the kettle gives an insistent, almost leering whistle.

Poe turns his head and hisses, “Shut up.” Their hips are still flush, so when Finn laughs, he feels it.

“We should get that,” Finn says. “We’re supposed to be getting everyone drinks. But we can… revisit this later.”

“Hey, what was your thing?” Poe asks. “That you wanted to tell me, I mean. Before.”

“That was my thing,” Finn says and grins.

After they’ve come back into the dining room and distributed juice and tea and coffee to everyone, the game resumes. On his left, Leia slides something to him so discreetly that no one else even notices. Poe glances down. It’s a sticker that says _great job_.


End file.
